Powering of Natural Gas Pipelines

An expression is developed for natural gas pipeline flow in terms of station power rather than the usual differences in the squares of the pressures, thus making it possible to directly evaluate the relative worth of power addition to existing lines or evaluate pipe versus power for new lines. Specific power requirements in terms of power per unit flow are combined with engine fuel requirements, making it possible to express station fuel consumed as a percentage of gas pumped, thus providing a figure of merit for various power plant-compressor systems. It is pointed out that with increasing gas costs and higher flow systems, the use of an axial flow gas line compressor should be examined because of the promise of higher efficiency obtainable with such a machine.